Gear Review

Garmin eTrex Vista

Excellent little unit

The Garmin eTrex Vista has some excellent features. The UI is very intuitive and easy to use. I found the little joystick control pretty user friendly too. The sunrise and sunset features are surprisingly useful. If you're staying on a trail, the unit can be safely used by itself to navigate. However, if you're going into the backcountry, I'd recommend using it conjunction with a good topo map. The topos available from Garmin are pretty good, but just aren't of a high enough resolution to be used alone. I keep this little guy in my glove box, and it's very useful for quick navigational checks while driving. However, if you're looking for turn-by-turn navigation, you'll have to spring for something a little more beefy. The available memory is more than enough to hold all the maps I need. All things considered, this is a great little tool.